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Valley’s got peaches
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
Dan Simmons had concerns about his peach crop again this year at Peace Valley Orchards in Rogers.
Last year, he had only seven peaches, but this year Simmons is confident and happy to say he will have 2,500 to 3,000 bushels of peaches.
“Until you pick them, you don’t have them,” Simmons said. “Farmers are never satisfied. But we all do it because we love it.”
The usual peach production at Peace Valley is about 4,500 bushels.
In the 2013-14 winter, Simmons says the temperature hit 10 degrees below zero three times, which froze the peach crop here and killed several trees.
Simmons lost at least 500 trees from the harsh winter.
“That’s part of the risk you take in Ohio,” Simmons said.
However, Eric Wilhelm, chief meteorologist for 21 WFMJ-TV, The Vindicator’s broadcast partner, contends this winter was a little worse than last. February was particularly worse. In fact, it is the coldest February on record.
“Once we turned the calendar over to April, the weather pattern changed,” Wilhelm said.
To Simmons, the temperature just wasn’t nearly as rough as the previous year. He knew at the end of March he would have local peaches, not shipped, in his market this year. He cut sticks off the trees and brought them inside to see if they would bloom, and they did.
“At the beginning of April, we knew the buds were all swelling,” he said. “They did not bloom until the first week of May, so they were a good week late.”
John Huffman, owner of Huffman’s Fruit Farm in Salem, also brought some parts of his peach crop inside to see if the buds would bloom. They did.
“Right now, we have about 80 percent of the peach crop,” Huffman said. “We have a good peach crop.”
Last year, Huffman had just 20 peaches. He lost about 20 percent of the trees.
“The cold must have come a little differently this year from a year ago,” Huffman said. “This winter the temperature didn’t jump around quite as much.”
The Farm Service Agency that covers Mahoning and Columbiana counties offers the Tree Assistance Program to help offset the cost to plant new trees. A total of eight producers from Mahoning and Columbiana counties have requested assistance, but that number could increase.
The program calls for farmers to have at least 18 percent of trees lost or damaged by the cold. After they purchase the trees and receive them, they submit the bill to the FSA and receive the flat rate of $8 a tree or 65 percent of the actual cost.
“They have lost more trees over the winter because of 2013-14 winter and then the 2014-15 impact,” said Jill Ritchie, county FSA executive director.
Not all growers in the area are positive they will have peaches this year.
“There seems to be four to five peach growers who really froze out again,” Huffman said. “They have a very small crop.”
Last year, both Huffman and Simmons had to bring in their peaches from other peach producers, which hit their markets’ business. Simmons was down $15,000 in his market directly because of the peach loss.
“People want good-tasting peaches,” Simmons said.
It’s not that the shipped-in peaches don’t taste good, Simmons explained. It’s that they have to be picked before they are ripe, and he picks his peaches when they are ripe.
The peaches will start to ripen at the end of July through late August.
“Everyone wants a red haven peach,” Simmons said. “The red haven is the first of the freestone peaches, and it gets ripe Aug. 6.”